The unfortunate problem with creating comics is having to debate for hours about whether or not to include a little joke, because including it means drawing another panel, which takes time and eats up valuable page space. Then you start wondering if it's even funny enough to be worth the effort and if you cut that panel then the others have more room to breathe and maybe you'll have enough space further down the page for that other moment that might be better for the story in the first place but you want to include both and and and
hi! i'm a novice comic artist and a big fan of your work :) i was wondering if you'd be willing to share a little sample of what a comic script looks like for you?
Sure! I'll share below the cut because it'll get a bit long.
(this turned into a longer post on my scripting process for comics, so do click through if you are interested in more than just a sample)
Here's the script for the opening pages of Bedfellows. The images have alt text so you can read it straight, but i'm posting screencaps because there's no way to share the exact formatting otherwise. Here's the pages themselves, for comparison:
I didn't write the script in any specialty software, just google docs, and for formatting I just memorised the different shortcuts for left/center alignment and indentation. I need a program that I can open up on any device and have my project synced across all devices because I actually do a fair amount of quick drafting on my phone, so a lot of professional script writing software doesn't work for me in this regard.
Though I wouldn't recommend any google product on principle. I hear Ellipsus and Proton Docs are less evil and programs that work just the same.
For my latest project, Surface Tension, I also set up paragraph styles for certain types of text. In this screenshot the blue text indicates flashbacks, and the green highlighted text indicates narration:
paragraph styles are assigned shortcuts, so once I memorise those I can shift into the style I want immediately:
It's worth noting that these are scripts I use in a professional context that an editor has to come in and read, so I keep them tidy and more detailed than scripts that are just for me.
Here's an excerpt from the Witchy script:
[LOUD SCREAMING AND GROANING FROM OFF-SCREEN BECAUSE IT'S REALLY EMBARRASSING LOOKING AT OLD WITCHY SCRIPTS]
Okay I'm not going to show it here but it's a lot lighter on description, and there's not a lot of information about the character acting during dialogue. It's honestly how I prefer to write, but when working with an editor there are just times you need to explain to them what things look like. You can sometimes also just draw them a picture.
You'll note that I don't demarcate page numbers anywhere here: I just really don't like to write and think about pages at the same time. That's what thumbnails/layouts are for. I have enough scripts behind me now that I can estimate roughly how many pages something will be from word count.
If you are doing things with a competent editor, or just working for yourself, you also don't have to script things formally like this if you don't want to. I would actually say that the vast majority of artist/writer cartoonists that I know work from an outline and script directly onto their thumbnails/layouts.
Sometimes I'll throw in a few thumbnails while scripting so I remember how I want to execute something, but largely my brain is not big enough to think about writing and drawing at the same time.
Also, while it doesn't really work for my needs, comics peer and former Witchy editor Steenz has developed a standardised comics script template alongside Camilla Zhang that is worth looking at if you're working with a larger collaborative team: https://www.oheysteenz.com/scs-template
also can we PLEASSE talk about the paneling on these pages.
up to this point the issue has consistently used gutters (the empty space between panels), with exceptions for wide establishing shots, and clean borders. but as Connor provokes Kyle here, the paneling breaks into these frenetic, inconsistent outlines. which is than SLAMMED back into smooth lines when Kyle holds himself still/back BUT we dont return to gutters until the next page - this moment is still too intense to allow that breathing room.
also, most of the panels are rectangular; the exceptions being closeups of Johnny while Connor is talking to him, a flash to Eddie, and this moment as Kyle rejects Connors side, all moments that imply that Connor and Kyle dont have all the information
hey!!!!! I ADORE ur work! How do u plan out ur comics? Do you plan most of it out before u start drawing, or do you make up the plot as you go?
Hello!! Thank you!I plan most of it before I even pencil in the first thumbnails. This is my process, but because of how the story (and dialogue) deeply influences the layouts, colours, pace and composition of the final page, I really need to get the majority of the script locked down. Plus my style of drawing comics is experimental and attempts a lot of off-the-walls panelling. I don’t feel comfortable unleashing all that creativity if I feel the story isn’t stable or going to have major changes, because coming up with unconventional layouts eats a lot of mental energy (doing 15 tiny scribbly thumbnails takes me 2 hours……..) and I don’t like changing visuals if I can help it.
Maybe it’s because I originally came into comics wanting to write prose first (then realised all of my ideas were heavily reliant on imagery), and my academic background, but the stories I tend to write have a lot of themes and messages and a central thesis. Like for The Carpet Merchant, its thesis is crafting a loving story that educates readers on an uncommon cultural setting (in Western media), and deconstructing the Vampire as Other trope. Seance Tea Party is about growing up and growing old and celebrating the two. Alexander is a dissection of his legacy and myth.
In order to achieve these theses I really need to know what on earth I’m writing beforehand. There’s a lot of thinking that runs through my head before I confirm anything in the script, but generally it’s:
what are the optics of idea XYZ? Will the interpretation of this idea be seen as harmful? By whom? Is there any alternative that achieves the same purpose but causes the lesser harm?
what do I want this story (or a certain scene) to achieve, emotionally
what sort of cool artsy gimmick I want to draw and how I am going to let the story accomodate this (or vice versa)
And so you can see why I totally can’t brain making up the plot as I draw. It works for some creators, but I hear the con of working that way is that later on, as you grow in experience as a storyteller, you realise that you could have done an earlier scene differently, or you come across a plot dead-end that you didn’t have the foresight to identify at the time. And it’s too late of change it. So yeah.
Comics craft tip! It's a good rule of thumb to avoid this specific arrangement of panels!
It's a layout that will confuse your reader, because it's unclear which panel comes next. You rarely want someone's reading experience to be interrupted trying to figure out which panel they're supposed to be reading. The reverse layout, on the other hand, is no problem.
Is it possible to use composition and lettering to make it clear which panel comes next? Absolutely! Just make sure it's something you're doing on purpose, and remember that compositions are usually better when you're not actively fighting your layout.
Hail, flatter! This one, who is a layperson of the arts and comixcraft, has a query for you:
So like, what is flatting?
I've seen your flats in Wifwulf, and I've read about the flats in Looking Glasses, and generally get that it results in an image with similarly coloured areas sharing the same false-colour.
But like, how is it then used? The final images seem to contain more colours and shading, so why not just go straight to this? Why do false colours get used instead of the real ones? How do you pick the colours and how many get used?
How come this is a thing that a whole other person can do separately? I guess that's because it's time consuming - so it saves time somehow?
Thank you! I come in the spirit of humility wishing to relieve my ignorance of your noble craft!
OHOHOHO!!! You've activated my trap card and now I get to ramble about comics craft! And in my area of professional expertise, too! Be prepared for a long post
I'm going to start with the last part of your question:
How come this is a thing that a whole other person can do separately? I guess that's because it's time consuming - so it saves time somehow?
So the thing about comics is that it is one of the most intensely time consuming mediums to create. One person can make comics on their own fairly easily, but it takes forever to produce. Consider that I've been working on Looking Glasses for 18-19 months and have drawn about 87 pages. Now, the western comics industry expects issues to be produced monthly, generally 24 pages in length. It's very difficult for a single person to work at this rate, so the labor of producing comics has been divided. Generally these jobs become:
Writer (writes the script)
Editor (edits the script)
Artist (draws the lineart)
Colorist (colors and renders the art)
Letterer (adds balloons, dialog, and sfx)
Flatter (sometimes 'color assistant' they take the art and prepare it for coloring)
This isn't comprehensive though, there are a bunch of other jobs, like designers and layout artists. Occasionally the artist job gets broken into Pencilers (who sketch the art) and Inkers (who ink the sketch). Basically, by splitting the work amongst a number of people you can produce comics much faster. Not all of these jobs are required, and creator-owed books might have artists do their own coloring and lettering, while big work-for-hire books might have twice as many people working so they can pump out a spider-man book every other week.
Okay, so why Flatters?
Flatting at it's most basic level is just coloring inside the lines. You take a black and white page of art, and you have to fill in every part of the page that will eventually be colored. It's a pretty time consuming task depending on how involved your lineart is.
Flatting a page of Looking Glasses doesn't take me all that long, usually less than a half hour, which is pretty quick. Looking Glasses pages tend to be... optimized for flatting though. There are only ever a few characters and there aren't a ton of background details.
You mentioned Wifwulf (created by my longtime friend and collaborator Dailen Ogden), here's one of it's pages:
Basically everything that's a different base color, (every tree, plant, bit of moss, character, etc.) needed to be picked out separately. Each page of Wifwulf took me a few hours to flat. If Dailen had been doing that themself, those hours would have really added up, but instead they could spend that time drawing and coloring. Now, that said, these pages have a lot of texture, so it's hard to see exactly what I did.
Here's an example from a comic I worked on early in my career. (Lineart by Patrick Custodio)
The writer for this comic loved to put in these incredibly complex crowd scenes, which is something the artist excelled at drawing. I was coloring and flatting at this point on the book, and before I could even start coloring properly, I would need to flat for like eight hours. (I have a much more efficient method these days) It was frustrating because I just wanted to work on the actually creative part, but the majority of my time was spent on something monotonous. As soon as I got the writer to hire a flatter for me, coloring a page would take me only one or two hours, not nine or ten.
So that's why flatters exist, mainly to ease the workload on colorists.
But like, how is it then used? The final images seem to contain more colours and shading, so why not just go straight to this?
Flatting serves a couple of purposes. It's main function, like I said above, is just coloring in the lines. After finishing your lineart it has to get colored in, so in a layer below the lines, you add colors.
The secondary function is preservation. I like to work in a way that is non-destructive, basically, at any point in the process I can restore an earlier version of the drawing if I make a mistake or don't like something. Flats are integral to this.
In digital art, there's this thing called anti-aliasing, where the edges of a line or shape have a drop off of pixel color or opacity. It makes the edges look smoother or blurrier. The three dots on the left are Anti-Aliased, while the one on the right is Aliased, there's no drop off, just hard pixels.
Anti-aliasing is fine until you need to change the color using the paint bucket, or select using the magic wand...
See how the anti-aliased art doesn't play well with these tools, but the aliased art does? So with something like Wifwulf, the final art is going to be full of texture that makes it impossible to select anything again once it's painted. By having a dedicated aliased flats layer under the rest of the artwork, you can always re-select any part of the image you want.
I always leave my flats layer alone, and do any detail work in layers above. For example when I was painting this, it really helped to be able to select just the titan so I could work on those paints without worrying about brushstrokes overlapping the rest of the characters.
One of the other things you can do with flats is quickly selecting certain elements. On most pages, I flat my panels, figures, and background elements separately. Later, with a single button press, I can select just the characters in the scene, or entire panels at a time, which makes things like shading a whole lot easier.
Why do false colours get used instead of the real ones?
If you're flatting for other people you often don't know what the final colors are going to be, so you just pick random ones. Garish colors can be helpful because it makes it obvious that they're not the final colors. Why don't I use the correct colors on my own pages when I'm flatting? Habit, mostly. It's also faster to grab random colors than to track down the correct ones. Sometimes two different things will have the same final color but I like to flat them with different colors so I can select them individually if I need to.
You can see the process a bit here. In my flats, Lancer's spade (eye? eyes? thing) is a different color from his tongue, even if they end up being the same white in the final image. This would help if I ever needed to select just his eyes for some reason. You can also see how I select his body fur color and then add details on top, like his colored fingers and the grey on his arm. Those elements have blurry anti-aliased edges, and it would be impossible to re-select them without flats.
How do you pick the colours and how many get used?
I use the default "additional color set" palette in clip studio and just work my way through it. I pick row and work my way down (for a change of pace I vary which row I start with). How many is mostly dependent on the artwork. You just keep going until you run out of individual objects to color. I have worked on pages where I've run out of colors on this palette and had to start making up more. Typically a page of Looking Glasses only needs around 20-30, though.
So! That's flatting! It's a little known job, and it's how I got started with my comics career, so I have a lot of thoughts on it. I was trying to be concise (lol), so I hope this all makes sense, but I'd be happy to clarify or answer any other questions about this process. I know I didn't really go into how I flat my work, so I can make that post if anyone is interested.
